Benton Museum

‘Be Not Afraid of Greatness:’ Shakespeare’s First Folio Coming to UConn

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Recent news coverage of the discovery in Scotland of a previously unknown first edition of William Shakespeare’s collected works has brought increased interest to the national traveling exhibition “First Folio! The Book That Gave Us Shakespeare.” That exhibition is coming to UConn in the fall, and will be on display at the William Benton Museum of Art from Sept. 2 to 25.

First Folio, title page.
First Folio, title page.

The “First Folio” is the first collected edition of Shakespeare’s plays published by two of his fellow actors in 1623, seven years after the Bard’s death on April 23. The collection includes 18 plays that would otherwise have been lost, including “Macbeth,” Julius Caesar,” “Twelfth Night,” “The Tempest,” “Antony and Cleopatra,” “The Comedy of Errors,” and “As You Like It.”

The national tour is being hosted by one institution in all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and Puerto Rico to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s passing this year. The tour is a partnership between The Folger Shakespeare Library, Cincinnati Museum Center, and the American Library Association.

Table of contents from the First Folio.
Table of contents from the First Folio.

“As an institution with a strong history of championing the dramatic classics through our resident theater, Connecticut Repertory Theatre, we are very proud to have the opportunity to host this exhibition for our state,” says Anne D’Alleva, dean of UConn’s School of Fine Arts. “This is an important document in the life of the arts, and for our students and wider community to experience here on campus.”

During the month-long run of the exhibition, UConn will also present a variety of related academic and cultural programming in its venues, including the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, libraries, and lecture halls. The activities will include a Connecticut Repertory Theatre production of a Shakespeare play, workshops for high school English teachers, a festival of Shakespeare in film and popular culture, a puppet adaptation of “Macbeth,” a menu from the Elizabethan era served at the Benton Museum café, and other events.

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

 

 

Protesting Inequalities in the Art World

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When a group of women artists first put on gorilla masks to protest gender and racial inequalities in the art world, their use of humor on advertising handouts and posters called attention to the paucity of works by female artists in gallery and museum exhibitions.

Posters on display as part of the Guerrilla Girls exhibition at the Benton Museum. (Amy Jorgensen/UConn Photo)
Posters on display as part of the Guerrilla Girls exhibition at the Benton Museum. (Amy Jorgensen/UConn Photo)
Taking the names of dead women artists in order to be anonymous, and wearing the masks to protect themselves against possible retaliation, they called themselves the Guerrilla Girls. More than three decades later, they say there is still work to be done. “When we started in 1985, you could hear curators and gallery people saying that women and artists of color were not making art that is part of the contemporary dialogue,” says Frida Kahlo, one of the founders of Guerilla Girls. “No one would say that now.” Kahlo’s namesake is the 20th century surrealist Mexican painter known for her self-portraits and as the subject of the 2002 Salma Hayek film “Frida.”Thirty-nine off-beat “guerrilla-advertising” posters, advertising, and other works are part of the “Guerrilla Girls: Art, Activism, and the ‘F’ Word” in the center gallery of the William Benton Museum of Art through May 22. The exhibition is drawn from the 89-pieceGuerrilla Girls Portfolio Compleat (1985-2012) recently acquired by the museum.

Among the works in the exhibition is a 1989 billboard poster that addressed concerns at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. The poster depicts a nude woman wearing a gorilla mask lying on a couch with a headline asking: “Do women have to be naked to get into the Met. Museum? Less than 5 percent of the artists in the Modern Art sections are women, but 85 percent of the nudes are female.”

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

“Guerrilla Girls: Art, Activism, and the ‘F’ Word” continues through May 22 at the William Benton Museum of Art, 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs. For more information, go to the Benton Museum’s website.

Exploring Masculinity Through Art

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From the first Olympic Games in ancient Greece, when images of muscular male athletes were painted on urns, to the images of gods and heroes created in Western art in succeeding centuries, the ideal of masculinity was characterized by the muscular male nude figure. In fact, the male nude was a more frequent figure in art than the female nude for hundreds of years, until the early 19th century, when Victorian morality influenced art and culture.

Toward the end of the 1800s, the advent of “physical culture” (the Victorian version of physical fitness) and the intense realism of the new medium of photography revived interest in the male nude in art that later moved to abstract representations of the male body in painting and sculpture.

Detail from Actor, 2010, Benjamin Degen, oil on canvas over panel, part of the 'Stark Imagery: The Male Nude in Art' exhibit at the Benton Museum. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)
Detail from Actor, 2010, Benjamin Degen, oil on canvas over panel, part of the ‘Stark Imagery: The Male Nude in Art’ exhibit at the Benton Museum. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

“Stark Imagery: The Male Nude in Art,” on display at the William Benton Museum of Art through March 13, traces the history of the male body as depicted in drawings, paintings, sculpture, and photography from the 16th century black-and-white chalk drawings of Alessandro Allori, to the late 20th-century photography of Roger L. Crossgrove, emeritus professor of art in the School of Fine Arts, and the early 21st-century paintings of Benjamin Degen.

Sherry Buckberrough, chair of the Department of Art History at the University of Hartford, who wrote much of the exhibition text, says the early 20th-century interest in body-building and sports helped to revive art focused on the nude male body.

“This development had several sources. One was a desire for outdoor activity and healthy bodies after the long Victorian practice of spending most of the time in heavily layered interiors,” she says. “Another was what seems to have been a need to redirect the image of bourgeois masculinity from the properly dressed man sitting in an office to the physically active, strong man. The move from soft to hard revived confidence in masculinity. Interest in healthy, athletic bodies continues to this day.”

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

“Stark Imagery: The Male Nude in Art” continues, along with “In-Difference: Reflections on Race,” through March 13 at the Benton Museum of Art, 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs. For more information go to the Benton website.

Interactive Exhibit Prompts Dialogue on Race

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With 82 percent of adults aged 18-29 using Facebook and a doubling of Pinterest and Instagram usage since 2012 according to the Pew Research Center, it is not surprising that Millennial college students want to share information using a variety of media, including art in a museum.

This is reflected in the interactive exhibition at the William Benton Museum of Art “IN-DIFFERENCE: Reflections on Race,” which was designed by students in the School of Fine Arts as a collaborative classroom response to the 2015- 2016 UConn Reads theme of “Race in America.” The exhibit continues through March 13.

UConn Reads exhibit: works by graphic design students on the issue of race at the Benton on Jan. 22, 2016. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

UConn Reads exhibit: works by graphic design students on the issue of race at the Benton on Jan. 22, 2016. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

UConn Reads exhibit: works by graphic design students on the issue of race at the Benton on Jan. 22, 2016. (Sean Flynn/UConn Photo)

With 82 percent of adults aged 18-29 using Facebook and a doubling of Pinterest and Instagram usage since 2012 according to the Pew Research Center, it is not surprising that Millennial college students want to share information using a variety of media, including art in a museum.

This is reflected in the interactive exhibition at the William Benton Museum of Art “IN-DIFFERENCE: Reflections on Race,” which was designed by students in the School of Fine Arts as a collaborative classroom response to the 2015- 2016 UConn Reads theme of “Race in America.” The exhibit continues through March 13.

To read the entire article, visit UConn Today!

“IN-DIFFERENCE: Reflections on Race” continues at the William Benton Museum of Art, 245 Glenbrook Road, Storrs, through March 13. Also at the museum is “Stark Imagery: The Male Nude in Art,” also through March 13. For more information go to the Benton website.